Brother Jed v. The Angels

Which side are you on? Brother Jed’s, or the Angels’? Brother Jed is back in Tucson, and the Angels are looking for some people to take shifts in a silent, peaceful protest with them!

For those who don’t know, Brother Jed Smock travels around to college campuses all over the US and preaches outdoors in a style he calls “Confrontational Evangelism.” Many others just call it harassment – he yells insults at passersby and tells them that they’re going to hell. He considers anyone wearing sorority or fraternity letters to be amoral – sororities are just free whorehouses, in his opinion. He calls girls “whores” for holding hands with their boyfriends. He thinks that feminists, liberals, and anyone who listens to rock’n’roll is going to hell. He also makes racist remarks: the U of A Wildcat quoted him as preaching that “the only things Mexicans contribute to society are burritos, and Jewish people are only good at making bagels and running banks.”

He claims to be preaching Christianity, but he’s really just giving Christianity a bad name. The main thing that keeps him from being as bad as Westboro Baptist is that he doesn’t picket soldiers’ funerals and celebrate their deaths.

Usually, UA Pride Alliance runs the angels’ silent protest (standing in front of him, blocking him silently from some of his targets with giant angels wings), but their current director dropped the ball. One of my friends is organizing it at the last minute – they’ll be protesting from 11-3, from Monday, 2/20-Wednesday 2/22 in front of the Admin building. She asked if I knew anyone who could help, so I thought I’d put a shout-out for it.

Can you join the Tucson Angel Project as they stand in solidarity against hate speech in our community? You don’t have to be a U of A student to join them.

Update: A few weeks later:

I was asked to retract my statement that the current director dropped the ball. Apparently, someone who is not me has been getting a lot of grief for this column. So…. sorry, the UA Pride Alliance director did not screw up. I must have misunderstood. And please don’t be mad at a law student for this – I’m not a student at all.